Guy Clark is also 71 and a cancer survivor who has thrived in Nashville, not by writing hit songs, but by writing remarkable ones. His “Desperados Waiting for a Train,” “L.A. Freeway,” “Randall Knife” and “Dublin Blues” are considered among the most eloquent and emotionally compelling songs ever written in Nashville.

All for the Hall co-founders Vince Gill and Keith Urban kick off Tuesday’s benefit concert at Bridgestone Arena. Click image for photos from the concert. (photo: Larry McCormack / The Tennessean)

Jason Aldean pulls up to a side door at Bridgestone Arena to rehearse for Tuesday night’s We’re All for the Hall benefit concert for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. The sidewalk is littered with fans, and he jumps out of his Jeep and starts shaking hands and posing for pictures as he makes his way inside.

A few minutes later in the back hallways of the arena, Keith Urban spots Billy Joe Shaver and calls his name as he strides toward him with open arms.

“Billy Joe! Thank you so much for being a part of this,” Urban says as the men embrace.

That unity — artists of different generations coming together with fans to support the Country Music Hall of Fame — is what the evening is all about.

“There’s such a deep ingrained love of our history, of our music,” says Tim McGraw, who performed his songs “Real Good Man” and “How Bad Do You Want It.” “It got us to where we are today. I think that the Hall of Fame is something that is very dear to us all.”

Urban co-founded the benefit concert with Vince Gill in 2009, and Gill says he marvels at the caliber of artists Urban books to play the show every year.

“I’m already thinking about a theme for next year,” Urban says before the show. “It’s important to me what kind of theme is going to allow us to bring in older artists and new ones and have them fused together in an organic way.”

With the sold-out crowd of more than 13,600 fans in their seats, Urban and Gill kicked off the show with two songs each, with each artist playing back-up for the other. Urban dedicated his song “Without You” to his wife, Nicole Kidman, and daughter, who were present. Gill covered The Marshall Tucker Band’s “Can’t You See,” explaining he played with “those guys” 35 years ago and “loved every minute of it.”

Adkins injected some humor into the evening when after his first song “Just Fishin’” he turned around to “take a picture of my guitar players” Urban and Gill.

“I’m going to tweet that (stuff),” Adkins says from the stage.

Cash played “Seven Year Ache” and “Long Black Veil,”Church delivered songs he described as “obscure” and played The Band’s “Ophelia” and Jim Ford’s “Big Mouth USA,” and Shaver sang “Old Chunk of Coal” and “Live Forever.” Kid Rock got the audience on its feet with "All Summer Long" and then returned to the stage later in the night to perform "Picture" with Sheryl Crow, a crowd favorite.

But it was artists like Shaver and Nelson with which Aldean, who performed his hits “Take a Little Ride” and “My Kinda Party,” was looking forward to play.

“One thing I know is that they are not going to be around forever,” Aldean says. “Any time you can share the stage with them, that’s huge for us. Those are the people that paved the way for us to be here.”

Nelson and Kristofferson were among the last to perform. Kristofferson walked out wearing a harmonica, which he played on "Me and Bobby McGee."

"That's the best band I've ever played with," Kristofferson says, referring to the musical boost he received from Urban and Gill.

Nelson played "On the Road Again" for the audience and the show ended with the evening's performers on stage singing "Family Tradition" with Hank Williams Jr.

To date, the fundraiser has generated $1.5 million for the Hall of Fame, with an additional $500,000 expected to come from Tuesday’s show. It’s a check the Hall of Fame can count on for years to come.

“I see myself doing it in 25 years,” Urban says of the benefit. “I started this because I wanted to give back; it’s as simple as that. I have a pretty amazing life, and Nashville and country music has given me that.”

Click the image for a photo gallery of Loretta Lynn through the years (photo: Dipti Vaidya /The Tennessean)

Country Music Hall of Famer Loretta Lynn has been taken off the lineup for tonight’s star-studded We’re All for the Hall concert tonight. Organizers say Lynn canceled because of a close associate’s illness.

Click to see a gallery of the third annual We're All for the Hall Concert benefitting the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum at the Bridgestone Arena Tuesday, April 10, 2012 in Nashville, Tenn. (GEORGE WALKER IV / THE TENNESSEAN)

Keith Urban is gearing up for Tuesday night’s We’re All for the Hall benefit concert for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. He organizes the event every year with Vince Gill, and this year’s theme of outlaws has provided Urban with the unique opportunity of finally playing with Loretta Lynn.

Urban and Lynn have a history: He was once her date to CMT’s Flameworthy Awards and has fond memories of the evening.

“I got a call from Loretta’s manager saying, ‘Would you like to take Ms. Loretta to the awards,’ ” Urban recalls, laughing. “I had the best night sitting next to her, hearing her stories and her commenting on every person that performed on the stage. It was a lively evening. I’m looking forward to actually playing music with her this time.”

Click for photo gallery: Bobby Bare, Kenny Rogers and Cowboy Jack Clement pose for pictures following the announcement of their induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame (photo: Samuel M. Simpkins/The Tennessean)

“A lot of things happened to me when I was in the fast lane that I took for granted and didn’t take the time to savor,” said Rogers, 74, who scored his first hit with 1969’s “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town,” and who notched 21 No. 1 country songs and more than 50 million albums sold. “If this award had come at a time like that, I might have just said, ‘I’ve got the credentials, I deserve this’ and let it go. But this comes at a time when I can really stop and enjoy what this means.”

Rogers, Bare and Clement’s credentials are varied and unassailable.

Elected by Country Music Association voters in the “modern era” category, Rogers was a gravel-voiced commercial kingpin whose popularity spread beyond country and into pop and cinema environs. His hits include “The Gambler,” “Coward Of The County,” “Daytime Friends” and “Lucille.”

Elected in the “veteran” category, the 78-year-old Bare’s eclectic and varied way of delivering songs made him an enduring favorite who championed ace songwriters Shel Silverstein, Kris Kristofferson, Tom T. Hall and Billy Joe Shaver and who kick-started country music’s “Outlaw Movement” of the 1970s with his self-produced 1973 album “Bobby Bare Sings Lullabys, Legends and Lies.”

Clement was elected as a “non-performer,” though he’s spent decades as a performing and recording artist. He produced brilliant works for Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Charley Pride and many more; he published songs including “She Thinks I Still Care”; he brought Pride to popular attention and desegregated country music in the process; he convinced Kristofferson to move to Nashville in the 1960s; he schooled studio proteges including Garth Fundis, Allen Reynolds and Jim Rooney; he arranged Cash’s “Ring of Fire”; he opened the first professional-grade home recording studio in Nashville; and he earned a reputation as a grinning sage of Music City.

Funny thing is, Wilder came up with his rocking manifesto at the start of his career. It’s just that now, after watching the “last of the full grown men” on stage all these years, it rings clear with a certain gravitas.

Thankfully, this is one band that isn’t showing its age, and will play the soundwaves with a cross-continuum of rock, blues, country and points between and beyond at 3rd & Lindsley this Saturday at 7 p.m. Tickets are $10.

Wilder started out with a version of this current band, The Beatnecks, back in 1985.

His drummer R.S. “Bobby” Field, who would later produce some of Wilder’s most iconic albums, suggested Jimmy Lester as his own replacement, back when Lester was banging the skins for Billy Joe Shaver.

“That’s great I thought, but how do you know he can play rock and roll?” Wilder asked his friend, who reassured him that Lester could play anything.

“He turned out to be a one in a million stylist,” says Wilder of his now long-time drummer, who also helped anchor Los Straitjackets for nine years.

One of Wilder’s greatest achievements came in 2011, when he was inducted into the Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame, along with legends like Elmore James and Rufus Thomas.

“I was surprised and honored,” said Wilder, joking that he can’t imagine who’s below him on the list.

Click to see a gallery of the third annual We're All for the Hall Concert benefitting the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum at the Bridgestone Arena Tuesday, April 10, 2012 in Nashville, Tenn. (GEORGE WALKER IV / THE TENNESSEAN)

For the fourth year in a row, a cast of country music legends and modern stars will share the stage in Nashville to raise funds for the Country Music Hall of Fame.

The fourth annual "We're All for the Hall" benefit concert returns to Bridgestone Arena on April 16.

There's a number of against-the-grain artists in that lineup, which reflects this year's theme: “Rebels and Renegades, the Outlaws are IN."

“The purity in making music on your own terms – to create art in your own way – for me, is at the heart of the outlaw spirit,” Urban said in a release. “It's those outlaws that we celebrate this year, who not only made it possible for a guy like me to do what I love, but who play a pivotal role in the strength of Country music's diversity.”

The first three "We're All for the Hall" concerts raised roughly $1.5 million for the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Tickets are $35-$50, and on sale at 10 a.m. CT Fri., March 1 via Ticketmaster, the Bridgestone Arena box office or by calling 1-800-745-3000. Phone, internet and outlet orders are subject to a convenience fee. Museum members can take part in a special ticket presale.

The festival portion of the four-day event will bring over 100 acts to several of Nashville's top venues, and the nightly showcases will be open to the general public as well as conference attendees (who have priority admission).

Togetherness is one thing. Constantly traveling the world with your significant other, in a jeep, a rental car or a crowded coach section, to 180 different job sites a year is quite another.

Most couples would be hard-pressed to lead a life that involved that much closeness. Some might even consider it a nightmare. But Nashville singer-songwriters Rod Picott and Amanda Shires make it work professionally and personally.

“It’s kind of like what you’d think,” says Picott, who celebrates the release of his latest collection of storytelling songs, Welding Burns, with a Bluebird Cafe show tonight. “It’s usually easy at first, then at some point it gets difficult, because we’re never away from each other. But it’s something we’ve done well with, that I’d imagine most people would really struggle with.”

Unmarried, Picott and Shires have logged more time in each other’s company over the past five years than many married couples spend together over decades. The challenge has been to give each other space, not to find quality time.

But even they have their limits. This year, Picott and Shires (who has her own new album of ethereal Americana, Carrying Lightning) have declined to share quite so much pavement-pounding, as Shires is spending much of the summer taking writing courses at The University of the South in Sewanee. She’ll perform with Picott at the Bluebird, playing fiddle and singing harmony vocals, and they’ll pick up the pace in the fall, playing co-billed shows in which they’ll each essentially be the other’s backing band.

“I don’t want to be gone 200 days out of the year anymore,” Shires says. “I’m not ashamed to admit that. It’s wearing. Rod is a real road warrior, and he can drive for days and doesn’t seem to tire. But the cool thing about traveling this way is that you’ve always got somebody on your side if you get into trouble. And it helps if you like the music.”

Click to see a gallery of Emmylou Harris photos (this image: Jack Spencer).

There’s a point in “The Road,” Emmylou Harris’ rumination on her brief but transformative time with late, great Americana forerunner Gram Parsons, where the mournfulness might threaten to overwhelm.

The leadoff track to a new album titled Hard Bargain (out April 26), “The Road” finds Harris depicting Parsons as the impetus for her life in music. But that life, while well celebrated with honors such as her induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame, has necessarily been one of unease. As she puts it in the song, “I have spent my whole life out here working on the blues.”

But that line isn’t meant to sound self-pitying — it’s something of a nod, both to her work ethic (“I don’t take vacations,” she says) and to another late and great troubadour friend, Townes Van Zandt. It was Van Zandt who explained with a forthright whimsy that there are but two kinds of music, “The blues and zip-a-dee-doo-dah.” The blues, then, stands as the good kind, and it can’t be made without labor, taste and soul.

“That song is a ‘Thank you,’ ” Harris says. “It’s looking back and being grateful that you ran into that person and your life was changed, and all the good things that have come to you from being on that path. I’ve had wonderful company along the way.”Continue reading →